Were you a lion, how would you behave?

There is nothing that of late years has afforded matter of greater
amusement to the town than Signior Nicolini's combat with a lion in
the Haymarket, which has been very often exhibited to the general
satisfaction of most of the nobility and gentry in the kingdom of
Great Britain. Upon the first rumour of this intended combat, it
was confidently affirmed, and is still believed, by many in both
galleries, that there would be a tame lion sent from the tower every
opera night in order to be killed by Hydaspes. This report, though
altogether groundless, so universally prevailed in the upper regions
of the playhouse, that some of the most refined politicians in those
parts of the audience gave it out in whisper that the lion was a
cousin-german of the tiger who made his appearance in King William's
days, and that the stage would be supplied with lions at the public
expense during the whole session. Many likewise were the
conjectures of the treatment which this lion was to meet with from
the hands of Signior Nicolini: some supposed that he was to subdue
him in recitativo, as Orpheus used to serve the wild beasts in his
time, and afterwards to knock him on the head; some fancied that the
lion would not pretend to lay his paws upon the hero, by reason of
the received opinion that a lion will not hurt a virgin: several
who pretended to have seen the opera in Italy, had informed their
friends that the lion was to act a part in High Dutch, and roar
twice or thrice to a thorough bass before he fell at the feet of
Hydaspes. To clear up a matter that was so variously reported, I
have made it my business to examine whether this pretended lion is
really the savage he appears to be, or only a counterfeit.

But before I communicate my discoveries, I must acquaint the reader